Page 46 of Here Be Dragons

“Yes.”

And I hadn’t even realized it!

Now that I thought about it, that was actually pretty romantic in its own way. It was definitely a lot better than just telling me we were announcing it tomorrow.

“I guess if people ask for details when we announce it, I can tell them the dragon version of it. Unless that’s supposed to be a secret or something.”

“No, no secret.” But Desmon still looked unsure, which was a new look for him. He always seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

This must be as new to him as it was to me. Imagine that! I was teaching an old dragon new tricks!

But he’d said that the dragons shared their treasures with each other, and I didn’t have anything to share with him. My only treasure was Q-Tip, and I doubted Desmon thought of him as anything more than extra responsibility.

“I will tell the media the ring is a placeholder,” he said. “Something to follow human traditions until I can find something more suitable.”

I blanched at the word media. “I hate the spotlight.”

“I’m sorry, My Treasure. It is inevitable with who I am. I, too, dislike the attention. I will shield you the best I can.”

“Thank you.”

Despite wanting to stay with me, Desmon needed to make plans for our upcoming trip. He walked me to my room…or was thatQ-Tip’s room now, because technically I stayed with Desmon in his nest at night?

Q-Tip remained wary of him, probably because Desmon, for all his kindness to me, was still an apex predator, and Q-Tip knew it. But eventually, the rabbit did deign to take a yogurt drop from Desmon. The smile on the dragon’s face at the simple gesture had me melting.

Okay, maybe he didn’t think of the little guy as just an extra responsibility.

Desmon tried to pet him, but Q-Tip hopped away, sweet yogurt prize still in his mouth. I knew yogurt drops weren’t good for him, but this was a special occasion, and I figured it would be fine if we didn’t make a habit of it. I needed my boys to like each other.

“Next time you will not escape so easily, little bun.”

That had me smiling so wide my cheeks hurt.

Then Desmon gave me one last kiss, and left to make his plans.

With him gone, I decided that everything that had happened in the past few days was way beyond Q-Tip’s pay grade. I fished my phone out of my purse and called Dana, hoping that she would pick up. She did, right away.

“About time, girl! I thought you were dead!”

“Hello to you too.”

“So…how’s Darlington?”

“Darlington is…good.”

“I sense a buuutt,” she sing-songed.

I launched into my story, throwing her essentially into the deep end. I did, however, leave out any details about the artifacts and the competition. My cell phone was probably not very secure, and if a certain she-dragon was eavesdropping, all she’d get was two girls talking about a hot as fuck dragon.

“Wait, you got kidnapped on your second week in Darlington? And I thought New York was bad!”

“I tell you all that, and you focus on the stupid kidnapping?”

Gillisandra already knew about that, so that was fair game.

“How am I supposed to react to my best friend telling me she’s suddenly engaged to a billionaire dragon shifter?”

“I don’t know, you’re the shrink!”

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